Isang Yun and the Hauptton Technique: An Analytical Study of the Second Movement from Duo für Violoncello und Harfe (1984)

Abstract

Composer Isang Yun developed an idiosyncratic musical language that blends Eastern-Asian and Western-European art traditions. Exiled from Korea due to political conflict, he continued his compositional career in Germany, where his music is renowned for its use of the Hauptton (“main-tone”) technique. Yun was the first to discuss this technique, which he interprets as a process rooted in East-Asian musical traditions, including Taoism philosophy. His music is remarkable in that it fuses this process within the context of Western formal structures. I combine Straus’s associational model with Yun’s Hauptton theory to analyse the second movement of Duo für Violoncello und Harfe (1984) in order to show the inclusion of Eastern-Asian and Western-European musical elements in Yun’s music. I begin by analysing several Haupttöne at the surface level through associational relationships, followed by a large-scale analysis of the entire movement with one fundamental Hauptton.